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Friday, 10 March 2017

The Jack Fletcher Band is a small indie-rock band based in Wolverhampton. So far they have released 2 EP's and have played a number of concerts.

(The bassist, Henry Bradley, was interviewed at a later date and his answers have been inserted where appropriate)

Members:

Jack
Fletcher – Guitar and Vocals (J)

George
Hadley – Guitar (G)

Henry
Bradley – Bass (H)

Tom
Robinson – Drums (T)

Can you tell me about your band and how
you got together?

J – we first got together
in a band in college I think, yeah that’s how me and tom met, and the bass
player who isn’t here tonight erm…

G - *holds up sign saying “HENRY” on it*
Yeah

J – He’s here in spirit

G – Here in spirit yeah

J – Then we met George somewhere

G – Nah

J – he just come out of
somewhere

G – I knew you before
didn’t I? I knew Jack through his old band

T – Facebook friends

G – Facebook friends. You
asked me to join and then… we’re still here

H – At college, I met
everyone through college and I knew George through jack and Tom who I met at
college, so that’s it really and we started playing together, we got together,
wrote some songs, started playing gigs

How long have you been together?

J – I think its been round
about two years, two and a bit properly

G – two and a bit yeah,
just over two years, I think it’s about September, October, so

J – yeah

G – two years and a few
months

J – yeah not that long

H – two years, maybe three,
not sure, two or three

Can you tell me about your new EP?

J – erm, what can we say
about it?

G – it’s just class innit?

T – buy it!

G – *laughs* buy it

J – nah we did our first EP
about a year ago or sommet- whenever it was, so we decided to do another one,
and yeah we did it here at the Newhampton arts centre, got a few in here like
and done pretty well outta I, gives us more gigs and that’s the thing when you
launch something new, you always get something better come outta it

H – it’s got some of the
best songs we’ve ever done on it, it’s got some of my favourites on there, I’m
sure the lads will probably say the same thing to you, and they just get better
every time and the next one I think will be just as good, if not better

Who is the main influence in the songwriting for the band? Can you
tell me about the process?

G - *gestures hand towards jack and sighs*

J – nobody writes the songs
really they all leave it down to me nobody writes anything

G – *laughs*

T – he comes up with words

G – yeah we write the music

J – I don’t come up with
words, I come up with songs lets be truthful

H – Jack writes the, we all
put our own parts to the… to the music but we all just bring in the song and we
kind of just build on top of that

What is your favourite song? Why?

G – that’s a tough question
that is, I don’t know we’ve got a few-

J – I think the strongest
song we’ve got is ‘What You Waiting For?’, I reckon that’s our strongest

G – I think the favourite
song we’ve recorded is ‘Jimmy’ but we don’t really play that anymore

J – when I showed it these
lot, they was in love with me

G – *laughs* we were

J – finally we’ve got some
more songs

G – it is a proper tune but
when we play we like more of an energetic thing don’t we?

T – I think our strongest
song, and probably the best song we have ever recorded is, the one that will be
released in a couple of months-

J – yeah that’s true

G – actually, yeah to be
fair

J – we’ve gone a bit
different on that one, we’ve gone done some more of like dance beats and
synthesizers, something a bit different

H – I’m gonna say Will I Be
Loved? That’s my favourite to play on the stage

Who is your favourite artist? Why?

J – Mine’s gotta be
Stereophonics

G – probably like Abba or
someone

T – I like Arctic Monkeys
probably or Led Zeppelin or Thin Lizzie, or I could just carry on but I’ll keep
it down for ya

G – Yeah I’ve got a few as
well – Stereophonics as well, Arctic Monkeys

G – A song I wish Id
written? Any to be fair ‘cause I cant write tunes, I cant write songs so any, I
dunno,

T – I don’t know how to
pronou-

G - I’m gonna be cliché and
say Wonderwall

T – I don’t know how to
pronounce it-

G - ‘cause I think if
you’ve got that many people singing the song and know the song then actually
you’ve done a good job, that would be my pick

T – Probably, I don’t know
how to… Cochise or Cochise by Audioslave I reckon

G – I don’t even know what
that is

J – Mines going to be
something pure ‘cause, just ‘cause of the lyrics is We Are Us by Twisted Wheel,
definitely

G – fair play

H – Baba O’Reily by The Who

What is the biggest gig you’ve ever played?

G – Probably-

J – We’ve played quite a
few big festivals and that, like crowd wise and that, erm, it’s really hard to
tell ‘cause dunno, it just happens here and there like.

G – it’s probably the one we
played here

J – We played here, we had
a lot- we had a few here

G – everyone that was here,
was here for us-

J – yeah

G – whereas other ones that
we’ve played have just turned up to see the other band but that one, they’d
come to see us didn’t they? And we did sell quite a few tickets

H – Probably the EP launch
at the Newhampton Arts Centre, that’s probably the biggest, at least it was the
best one

What’s the ultimate goal for the band?

J – just trying to sell records
like any other band, it’s why you get into a band, yeah it’s fun being in a
band but I think we’re all trying hard to… yanno to…

T – make it our life-

G – Get noticed-

J – yeah I supposed, i-i-it’s
a bit, I don’t know, it’s a bit pretentious, as we have been called just to say
that you want to sell loads of millions of records and that, but it would just be
nice to yanno, just sell an album and go, yanno, just look back at it and say,
we done that like

G – I think it would be
good for us to be able to this and be like steady and stable like innit

T – it’s not even about the
money

J – I’m not even bothered
about that, I’d rather just make an album, it do really well and then just sit
on the dole and just think, I’ve done it though, I’m not bothered, I’ve done it

G – *laughing* sit on the
dole

T – travel all over the
world to fans

G – I think that would be
the thing for me

T – fans who appreciate
your music

G – I think that would be
the thing for me, playing like loads of different places, ‘cause I think we all
like it when we’ve got a gig sort of in Yorkshire or something, but imagine how
good it would be travelling abroad like japan or something or just somewhere abroad
I think that would just be amazing to do

Anything else you want to
add?

G – Buy the
EP! And buy our new single that we are releasing soon, it will be on YouTube

T – and iTunes

G – yeah everything,
on Facebook, like us on facebook, twitter

T –
Instagram

G – Instagram,
everything, just search Jack Fletcher Band,

T – we’re
on spotify

G - we are
the only Jack Fletcher band aren’t we, so you’re not going to end up finding
someone else

J – well we
hope not anyway

H – Watch out,
it’s gonna be good

When Henry was interviewed separately, he reacted to the rest of the bands interview. Watch his reaction's and answers below:

The Big
Venture Community Centre has finally re-opened on The Scotland’s Estate, in
Wolverhampton, following a battle of trying to keep hold of the premises, gain
funding and revamp the old adventure playground into something more useful for
the community.

The
redeveloped centre has a number of rooms that are available for people in the
local community to use and hire to run classes, sell goods, learn skills,
socialise and relax. It is also home to Big Centre Radio Station and a brand
new community café.

Local
Councillor Steve Evans said, “I think what was important was to keep the
building alive, and through partnerships with the Big Local Community Trust,
and more importantly local residents supported by the local council and
councillors, [it] has enabled us to keep the building alive for the community,
run by the community.”

Chairperson
of Big Venture, Karen Trainor, said, “we had already lost [one] centre on the
estate, we didn’t want to lose this one as well.” Karen also helps out at the
centre by volunteering her time to help run and maintain the property.

One way
that the community stay’s in control of the centre is by holding shares. “So
far we have sold 70 shares… which has given us a bit of money to start with,
and by having a share, people can have a say on the centre,” told Karen.

Chris Allen
of the Big Local Trust explained that “about 5 years ago the area was given £1
million to invest. When the Scotland’s adventure centre was under threat of
closure, local residents said that what they wanted to do was take it over and
run it themselves.”

“The key
principle in the programme is that the residents are in control, residents are
leaders of this and therefore to have an organisation and building that is
owned by the community and an asset for the community,” stated Chris Allen.

Louisa
Edwards, from the Community Action & Training Services expressed, “The main
purpose of the centre is to provide something for everyone locally so we are
looking at getting groups up and running to use the centre, something for
everybody right from the little ones up to the older people.”